Barn Talk - Getting Started In Real Estate Investing w/Clay Whisler (Part 1)

Episode Date: February 25, 2022

Welcome To Barn Talk! All Whisler Addition! After much coercing and pleading, my older brother Clay has agreed to sit down with us and talk about his journey from music major to runnin’ gunnin’ real estate investor. Barn Talk Merch! 👇🏻 https://www.thislldo.co/ SUBSCRIBE TO THE PODCAST ➱ https://bit.ly/3a7r3nR SUBSCRIBE TO THIS’LL DO FARM ➱ https://bit.ly/2X8g45c SUBSCRIBE TO BARN TALK CLIPS ➱ https://bit.ly/3BlZnqq LISTEN ON: SPOTIFY ➱ https://open.spotify.com/show/3icVr4KWq4eUDl7Oy60YMY ITUNES ➱ https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/barn-talk/id1574395049 Follow Behind The Scenes👇🏻 ● This’ll Do Farm Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/30KPBNk ● Barn Talk TikTok ➱ https://www.tiktok.com/@barntalk?lang=en ● Sawyer’s Instagram  ➱ https://bit.ly/3BtX0n4 ● Tork’s Instagram ➱ https://bit.ly/3LGZJxS ------------------------------- ***PLEASE NOTE*** Barn Talk is a significant break from the typical content viewers have come to expect from This’ll Do Farm. Please be advised that we will be exploring a wide variety of topics (some adult-themed) and our younger viewers (and their parents) should be advised that some topics will be for mature audiences only. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There's more to life than finding the perfect car. But finding the perfect car can help you get the most out of life. Like the SUV that handles everything from drop off to off road, and the car that hulls groceries and hockey teams, or the van that's gone from just practical to practically family. Whatever you want, wherever you're going, start your search at ototrater.ca. Canada's car marketplace.

If this doesn't convince you that you can do it too, like, okay, so I started in real estate, and this is how much I did not know. I went to this real estate inspection, so that's where the inspector comes and looks at a house for a buyer and they try to find defects. And it gives the buyer kind of like an out in case they don't want it and something's really structurally wrong with the house. And he's coming to look at the furnace to give the furnace an inspection. Oh gosh. And he, we're down there and I'm down there with the buyers and I'm just in my like, dress clothes and you know and this uh it's a winter and this hVAC guy opens up the furnace and i look in there and there was a fire in there and i literally like had to contain my surprise because i didn't

know that furnaces had fire in them like i didn't know that's how that works all of the food we eat and much of the clothing we wear comes from plants and animals that are raised on farms Farms are different in type, in size, and even in name. Welcome to Barn Talk, all Whistler edition. If you've ever had the thought in the back of your mind of going out on your own and doing something big, well, today is going to be the episode for you. After much pleading, enough YouTube comments, we finally have gotten my brother, Clay, on the podcast to discuss his journey from music major to a run-and-gunning real estate investor.

this is going to be a very diverse conversation we're going to get into a lot and we're going to talk about life liberty and the pursuit of the next big deal you know why it's been so hard to get clay on here because he's the only one of us that's ever had an actual like real job so his times more precious than ours there's always there's always some houses that need some pictures or there's always a hot deal that comes up yeah or always something he's got to rehab so But we're glad we're glad to have him. I know he's a busy man, so we got to, we got to, we got to get right into it. But before we get right into it, we got to, you guys got to pay that fee. If you get any value from the show at all, all we ask is you shared out with your friends, family, co-workers, whoever, we're trying to grow this thing, trying to do some good in this world. It's kind of the ticket to admission to watch or listen to the show. And I appreciate all the people that have been doing that because the show is slowly growing. Leave us a review on iTunes. Leave us a rating on Spotify. pretty much anything you can do to help us promote the show. We really appreciate it, and it means a lot to us.

Also, we got Barn Talk merch, have the link in the description, and also in the show notes if you're listening. Dad, do you want to give them an old-fashioned torque market update because the markets are just absolutely haywire right now? The world is haywire. You're fired up today. I am. This is like clockwork.

I got my 3D energy drink. I've been sipping on that video. How many name you had? I only have one a day. Okay, all right. It's pretty natural. It's not, when everyone hears the term energy drink, they think of Monster, Red Bull. But energy drinks have gotten a lot better, guys.

They're not what they used to be. Yeah, I probably wouldn't be drinking Monster or Red Bull, but give a 3D a shot. I'm telling you, it's pretty good and not over crazy with the caffeine. All right. Thank you for that. Just saying. Thank you for that health advice. Yep.

So, yeah, everything is a little crazy. Before I get into that, I will say this week, we had the first. privilege of being on a round table that Swineweb put on. Jim Eady put it together. And there was us and five other pork producers. And it was real good. It was, uh, it was kind of like, it was a lot of topics crammed into a short amount of time. But, um, I would highly recommend it. It was pretty interesting. And, uh, I actually learned some stuff. There was, you want to talk about getting me fired up. That got me fired up. It did get fired up. So we're going to do a whole episode about One of the questions was how do we sell 10% more pork than we do today?

Sawyer's ears, if he was a German Shepherd, if he was Duke, his ears would have stood straight up because he was ready to go. That got his attention. So we'll have to do that. We'll do an episode about that. Yeah, well, my heading on my notes was there's nothing like war drums to drive up commodities. And so I checked, we're shooting in the morning. So the markets haven't closed for the day yet, but everything was up.

Last time I looked, wheat is 791 on the board. We don't have a local bid around here or else I didn't find a local bid. But, you know, this whole Ukraine thing has got the wheat market just going crazy because there's a lot of uncertainty there. And if anything does happen, Ukraine is a major, major producer of wheat. So that's got it headed up. Corn last time I, or this is yesterday, it was 645 at a local food. feed mill 653 on the board one thing that's interesting to watch as we go if these commodities keep moving is the ethanol margins gone to hell in the handbasket because now corn's getting

pretty expensive to be making ethanol out of it compared to the price of gasoline so margins on ethanol have gone negative so that will hurt demand long term because if they're not moving enough and if oil prices don't move up, then probably won't use as much corn to make ethanol. So soybeans 1578 at the river and 1624 on the board. And there's dry weather in South America. And USDA came out, and they didn't change their numbers. But nobody seems to care because I don't think the USDA has a whole lot of, they're like most arms of the government.

they don't seem to have a whole lot of credibility lately so people aren't really caring too much what they think somebody supposedly bought a big bunch of soybeans and that was supposed to be confirmed today and i i haven't heard if it was actually confirmed or not hogs are 90 bucks um and one 14 buck 14 for summer and wiener pigs are over 70 bucks and 50 pounders are over a hundred dollars and i would just say if you are lucky enough to have pigs by the middle of summer, you're going to get a pretty price for them, which you're going to need because feed prices are going to be high. Not as high as they are in Ireland, though. I had no idea. One of the guys that was on our round table yesterday was from

Ireland. They have the highest feed prices pretty much of anywhere in the world to raise pigs. I was like, dang, that would not be good. So cattle, buck 42, Bitcoin. I just checked Bitcoin. It was over 44, almost 45. So it's, it's come back a long way. It's coming back. Tesla, 925 the last time I looked. So Tesla is still on sale as far as I'm concerned, but they'll figure it out. I just saw today that for last month or last quarter, the Model Y was the second best selling car in California behind the Toyota Corolla and only buy like a couple hundred cars. Like the Corolla, like the Corolla, it was the Corolla was 60,500 and something, and the Model Y was 60,283 or something like that. And the Model 3 was like fourth or fifth.

So this year, it'll be, they're going to crush it. So get ready. In California. Well, but California accounts for, it's the biggest card market within the United States until enough people leave and go to Texas. And then Texas. Probably Texas. I think two years, Texas probably will be the best.

biggest market. If they don't ruin that state. And everybody left in California won't be able to drive because they're all homeless. Oh, wait, I shouldn't have said that. It's too harsh. Sorry. They're all riding the train getting the Amazon packages. Yeah, that's where my sweatshirt is. We're waiting on this. We order a sweatshirt, and it's the tracking. They just keep tracking. And I'm convinced that somehow it ended up on a FedEx training. I went to customer service, and they're not very helpful. I re-email them. They're lost. Hopefully they'll figure it out. They're probably just going to tell you, well, it's lost. Well, they pretty much told me go.

talk to my local FedEx? Well, local, what do you call? Truck, local. Oh, driver.

Yeah. And ask them. I'm like, I'm not doing, that's your, that's your guys's deal. I'm the customer. They said no,

it's your deal. Oh, I don't like it. Okay. All right, well, Clay Whistler, welcome to the program.

Well, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. I told myself, I wasn't going to come on here until I had reached, at least yeah a certain level that's what you kept saying my own mind life your own mind you're successful to us you convinced me well it's kind of like imposter syndrome right like so i'm a photographer

and i don't feel like i'm a photographer a lot of the time people will say well you're a photographer i'm like well i'm really not but then you think about what i do day to day now yeah and i am and it's like it's just weird you wear many hats we all kind of wear many hats in this family we're hogg We're hog farmers. Part of the time. YouTubers. I know. What do you really classify yourself as?

Like, do you just say entrepreneur at the end of the day? This is what I would like to say to people. If I did all the things that I accomplished and people ask me, I was a 65 year old man and they saw that I was wealthy if I got there. I just want to flat out just say, I'm a farmer. That's all I want to say. And just be like, because if you're super wealthy and someone asked you and you just said, I'm a farmer, they would probably well people probably wouldn't like that but if you are a farmer and you hear that from a farmer and you see that that guy's really wealthy you're probably going to be like holy crap he's probably got a lot of ground well it it's like we say holy crap it's like we say when because okay so the three of us we can have the conversations that we have and we don't look at each other like we're bat shit crazy but when you said i would tell people i'm a farmer So whenever I go somewhere and somebody asks me, so what do you do?

And I don't want to have the look when they look at me like I'm an idiot. I just go, I'm a farmer. That's what I say now. I'm a farmer. Because that's the easy out. People go, oh, okay. If you go, if you start in and say, well, you know, we've got a podcast and we're on social media and we, you know, show our lives as hog farmers and we do this. We've got a podcast.

90% of people just look at it and go. Oh. And then they're like shuffling. No, no, no. They don't go, oh. They go, are you making any money doing that? Yeah, you make any. No.

Because that's all that matters to people. I almost worry that people are like, God, you just need to focus on one thing. Just get a real job. Oh, yes. But I feel like, I feel like we kind of are focusing on one thing. You are focusing on one thing because your whole field is real estate. Yes. We are focusing on one thing.

besides this, this is kind of off it, but it's still on the farm. It drives the farm, though. It's all kind of rolled into the farm. Yep. You know, we're all, it's just different jobs inside the farm. And I've had a real job, and I can testify that

it's not what it's cracked up to be. But, you know, ultimately, I would probably say I'm an entrepreneur, but yes, what I say to most people is a farmer. I'd describe myself as an entrepreneur. I mean, I need two more. I know, I honestly don't. you are in my head i do but the problem is you just don't feel like you're successful enough because of

the social media but we're getting there probably that's probably it and i just think i have a very high expectation of myself and like i said when i hit a certain point then you can say okay well now well we'll have you back on when you get get that in your head but we want to have you it's all about the process it is about the process if you go back and look at that part of it that's right you look at our If you look at our YouTube videos on TDF, man, I was cringy. I don't recommend anyone to go watch those. I can't even watch it myself. I was pretty much high quality right from the start.

You didn't even want on the camera to start. You didn't even want to be on the camera. No, I didn't. So, yeah, it will be fun to look back at this one. I know. It's, you know, on this side of it, I think about this a lot. It's just such a gift to have you two on camera so much, I know one day you'll be able to go back and look at all these conversations and it'll be

pretty neat. Not a lot of people have that. I mean, they have like their Snapchat stuff that they go back and look at, but I mean, this is a whole different answer. I agree. This is a little bit, this is a little bit, it's not superficial. I mean, honestly superficial about it. I would love to, like I would, I would, I always thought about, I would love to have seen grandpa on his prime. Yeah, I know. Farming. And it's going to be, it's just cool. Like my kids are going to see you at 50 years old. And at 21 years old, I would have liked to see you at 21. No, you don't. Maybe all.

I would have probably wanted to see the extracurricular activities too, but that's all right. We didn't do any of that. Are we going to get into this thing? This is going to be, I have to just say, this is also going to be weird. I mean, you guys can clearly hold your own on a whole show. So you guys, what the audience doesn't even know is, like, at the dinner table. This is pretty much it. Just around.

You guys, they, you guys can take over the conversation, pretty quick. Yes. So it's going to be nice. You have to listen to me now. Wasn't correct or not. Yeah, I kind of learned, I feel like I've learned that from you, Dad.

Well, here's the thing, Clay. And that's how it always starts. I'm more quiet, too. I'm more of an introvert. Yeah. He, I, when we're doing single shows, I feel like in the beginning of this show, I had to, I was kind of timid on.

You were. Button in when you were talking. And then I would forget my points that I was thinking in my head. So now when I get a thought, You just bust in. I'm going. I know I got to go.

I know I got to go in there and just get it. We're all kind of that way. Like one of the thing, one of the hardest things for those of you that are watching or listening, and you'll know this, one of the hardest things for us to do is not to, not to cut in on each other and let us finish our thoughts. And as the guy editing, it is always irritating because it's, we do,

we're just, that's how we are. Because when we think of something, we're like, oh, yeah, got to get that in there. and there's just so many great ideas. That's all. Piss his mom off. Yeah. Yes.

We probably cut her off too much. She's kind of gotten to the point of she just resigns herself to just stop. She just stops because she's just like, sorry, mom, we love you. We love you. Yep. The voice of reason. Yeah, for sure.

Okay, Clay. Well, why don't you tell us, give us a little background. Tell us about yourself. Just talk about. Yeah. Let's go back. Yeah. So I grew up right here on this will do farm.

Yeah. And it was a very good childhood, I would say. Definitely. We had a really good dad. We had this really cool fort that he built us in the pasture on this dead tree. Like there was two dead trees. He put a couple of like, I don't know what bridge planks. Bridge planks across it and then laid down a bunch of boards on top of that.

And then we built this whole like, it's basically a tree house. Yeah. So we went out and we played there a lot. So we got a good amount of outside time. For sure. We really liked video games though too. We played a lot of video games. Yeah, the outdoor time ended about the time. Wouldn't you say X, yeah, Xbox 360. No, we we had like a trampoline. Yeah, we were outside all the time. And as far as like just being a kid, it was really mom and dad were both. dad yeah like he said had a real job when we were when we were really young Sawyer was just even a toddler probably but then really when you get to the age where you start to remember more he started doing uh sales and mom had a store back then she had a candle store she made all her own candles and so i had two kind of self-starter parents they didn't clock in necessarily like everybody else

they were kind of like light a fire under your butt and make it work type of people. And I'll say too, that was kind of a shifting point in my childhood too because we were not, I would not say we were even really like, we had everything we needed. But I always say it this way. We didn't have the Disney Channel growing up. And that was like a big deal because, you know, I felt like everybody had the Disney Channel. We just had the local cable WB. And so I remember when we got that, when dad started selling, it was like,

awesome that's all it took the bar was that low yeah have nicolodeon and the disney channel and cartoon network and all that stuff you guys loved when i watched sponge bob oh gosh i hated that so yeah oh god i hated spongebob too but uh i guess my point is i had a very interesting childhood in that at the beginning of it it was i did not get everything i wanted there was a lot of wanting that happened and you didn't you know i had i had a very great childhood But, you know, I wasn't spoiled. And then it honestly kind of pivoted because dad started selling, and that was a good gig for you. It was a good gig.

And it just changed. It just changed. We had fun. We went on more trips and we, you know, bought things for fun and all the Xbox games and just everything. But anyway, it was just neat to see parents as what I would call entrepreneurs. I think salespeople are entrepreneurs. They're more free than the. average employee.

Yeah. I'd say if you don't want to be a nine to five or sales is a good. Well, yeah. And I would just say this in that I was incredibly lucky. And I realize that now in the fact that there are a lot of people that are in sales. But if you're going to go the route of sales, you want to find the biggest, most expensive item that you can possibly find to sell for commission. because you're still trading time for money.

And I was just incredibly lucky that because I was in the ag construction business, when I stepped into doing sales, you know, I was selling half million, million, $16 million projects. And like, I were a guy that, the guy that took my territory, he started out, he sold. jewelry. He sold sporting goods. He sold cars. I mean, he's like your typical salesman. And then he ended up in the hog building business. And I think he would tell you that high tickets the key. Yeah. And so, you know, when you say that it was like such a pivot, it really was because I literally

went from, you know, working by the hour. And I was paid very well for doing service. There's no doubt about it. It was a good gig. But you literally were trading. time for money and the fact that, you know, if I didn't work, I didn't get paid. And when I switched to selling buildings, it just changed, it just changed the trajectory of everything. And it is true, you know, in that case, you make your own destiny. And that's what's beautiful about sales. And anybody that's in sales, you know, you pretty much, if you, and you have to believe in yourself. You got off the spades. do a flaw,

to an absolute flaw. The one thing I wanted to say about what you were talking about is I didn't really realize mom and dad were entrepreneurs. Like I never really, until I got older. No, it's just normal to you. Yeah. Life.

I didn't, I never like put that together when I was younger that that was the way it was. And then, because I feel like my whole life, I was like, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports, sports. Yep. And then when I was done with sports, that just kind of came naturally to me.

me. Like, that was the first thing I gravitated to was working for myself. The other thing I wanted to say, we did some farm stuff with you, but you weren't always here because you had to work. And I remember you told me one time, you know, because I, you know, there's a lot of people out there that are farmers that, you know, you grow up on the farm, you're out there with your dad all the time and you're just a farm kid through and through. That really wasn't our, how we grew up. I mean, we did stuff on the farm, but dad was gone, working his job. And I remember you told us once that you didn't want to come home because you were not home all the time and make us work. And that be the only bonding experience that we had because you weren't home a lot. And I get that totally. Not saying we never worked. We did. Clay chored some old hog barns. I can't believe that you even did that. Yeah. You know what? Bless my heart for trying. And I'll say that's the other thing about my childhood that really sticks out is like, I was encouraged to do what I liked to do and not dissuaded from that.

Like, I was a very artistic, musical child. I liked to... You're creative. I've had piano lessons when I was young, and, you know, your parents buy you a piano for that and make that all work and pay for the lessons. And then I just, I loved singing and just all of that stuff. And that wasn't, you know, and especially in rural parts, especially like late 90s, early 2000s. Not a lot of families probably, I feel like are like that. It's just kind of fru-frew,

I think, for a lot of people. So I appreciated that. And, you know, when it came to the hogs, that was clearly just not my strong suit. And I, you know, you try. I mean, it was, I don't know even what you say. I did help. I do. I do remember, like, in middle school, we would load pigs in the before school like five in the morning that sucked um but it just wasn't it wasn't me it just wasn't what i knew i just wasn't and if you have some if you have a kid that isn't a hundred percent on board whether they want to chore pigs and you give them old hog billings that the ventilation isn't great the lighting's not great yeah the pigs aren't great uh yeah the pigs aren't great It's not like I turned, it's not like I turned you loose with one of our new

finishers. It was, it was, they were pretty, these were all buildings built in the 70s and they were nothing special at that point. So yeah. And I was just, my whole temperament is just more, I'm just a more gentle person, I think. I was scared to death of the freaking pigs and just all the creatures that were over there and just everything. Yep.

And our moms a lot that way. I think that, yeah, I think mom. got rubbed off on me, honestly. I think mom can still say that I don't know if she's even been in all of our hog buildings. I know she's been in the double site because she was there because we had an open house, but. I don't even think she's been to mine.

No, she's been in the workroom because we took everybody up there, but I don't know if she ever even came into site too. So, yeah. That's not her cup of tea. No, it isn't. That's all right.

Nothing wrong with that. I didn't remember my first experience in the old barns. First time I went in there, I got in a pen, and I got bit. And I hated pigs. Oh, yeah. I got a bit, and I was pissed. I was like, this sucks. I don't like this, but.

I remember I wanted a flat screen TV so bad. It looks just like that one that's up on that wall. That might be it. I don't know if it is or not. Probably. No, I don't think that is. Anyway, I wanted a 32-inch flat-screen TV in my bedroom so bad. And Dad said, well, if you chore the hog barns basically all summer,

or for, like, I don't know how many weeks. Maybe you said eight or nine weeks. it will get you this TV. So that did light a fire under my butt to get over there and do it. Now I still probably wasn't, I know I was not perfect at it and I didn't do very good job, but I tried. Yeah. So yeah. It was good. It was a good experience. Yep. Yeah. We turned out all right. That's all it matters. We played a lot of halo. A lot of halo. Played outside, but we turned out all right, I think. So anyway, yeah, we just, so childhood, what did I want to be when I grew up? Yeah. Like I said,

I was super artistic. I love, this was just, I kind of like started like coming of age around the time YouTube just started becoming popular. So I was seeing like all of these YouTubers who were doing music covers and just whole music videos and it was so cool to me. I just loved it. And I was like, I want to do that. And I even like bought a camera.

But the problem was back then I was like 13, 12, 11 and there were no. courses. Like you couldn't go buy a, I didn't feel like you could go buy a book about how to like become. There wasn't any YouTube cover artist. And I frankly probably wasn't even good enough musically at that point either. But that's kind of what I wanted to do. And I also remember like I, our grandma on my mom's side had a computer at her house and she had Microsoft Word on there, which I loved. I just, I don't know why I love Microsoft Word so much, such a weird kid. But I love getting on that thing and just writing stories. And I was super into English classes all through school,

just like from kindergarten all the way up through high school. I loved writing and I loved creative writing and literature and all that stuff. So those were kind of like the things that I gravitated toward. What did I want to do when I grew up? God, I loved in high school this show. God, I don't know if your audience is going to like this or hate this. There was a show called Glee on TV. so it was amazing for its time.

Just all these Broadway singers came onto this show and they did all these covers of these songs, loved it. I was like, I want to do that. That sounds so fun. Yeah, and you had a voice. You had a voice. We're forgetting this part.

Clay is a good singer. Yeah, I forgot. I barely sing anymore, so it's like, so crazy to even... I was a good singer when I was a kid, but I was too chicken shit to ever sing in front of anybody. So I never really developed it. I felt like Clay had the balls, though.

And our family, really validated that. Like my, our uncle Trent who has been on here, they were in a whole traveling type musical thing and their daughters went to a performing arts high school and it was just awesome. Like they were just so cool to me and like the one like did something, the Grammys or something. Yeah. One of our cousins. So it was just like I saw like I guess what was possible and I wanted that but music being a musician. Yeah. Yeah. So that was your dream. Yeah. So anyway, I was kind of disillusioned because I kind of thought, like, I'd go. So I was like, okay, well, I probably ought to go to college for music. I probably ought to just do it and go.

So I said, well, I want to do music because, and I'll say this too. Like, I always felt like I was really good at talking to people and communicating. You were. And I was very professional and a very self-starter as a young person. And so I knew in the back of my mind that even if I got a agree in whatever it was. I knew that I would be able to really carry myself and hold my own out in the real world in a professional workplace environment. Just because I just, I knew I had that ability. So I didn't necessarily think, I was always like, oh, you can get like a real job later, do what you enjoy and get good at it. And we can talk about why I'm glad I did that later. but yeah so I kind of had this like feeling like okay going to school and being a music major

it's going to be like basically an episode of glee every day well it was not that it was very different from that it was you know I went to a I went to UNI in northern Iowa and it just wasn't you know TV makes it look one way and it's totally another way but it was I just realized very quick so I actually went to school for music teaching Um, and because I, I still wanted a job at the end of it when I got out. And I wasn't just going to be vocal performance because I wasn't sure how realistic that was. And I just realized very quickly, I did not want to teach kids and haul kids around in a van and take them to all these, um, what's it called? Performances. Allstate competitions and all that stuff. I just didn't want that. And I figured that out pretty quick. But I liked playing and seeing just for the sake of it. And so, So I switched. I moved around kind of not more than most people, but like a healthy amount. So I was in PR for a while in college. I did a whole semester where I was PR, so public relations. And there was this moment in that one of the big public relations lectures where the teacher was talking about this politician, European politician who was supposed to go to a diplomatic summit or something in Europe.

and he got way too drunk on his plane, like just sloshed. And his plane lands in the country they're supposed to have this summit at. And so the PR guy for this politician comes out and has to like make up this lie basically about why the politician's not going to be able to go to the summit. And, you know, I don't know. I mean, maybe that story was to weed people out and just tell them the honest truth of that occupation. But I heard that. And that was just like a total light switch moment for me.

And I was like, yeah, I'm not going to like spin stuff for my job. Yeah. Like I don't. Make up stuff. I just, it just didn't vibe with me. It was not what I was about. So anyway, then I totally, I was like, well, what else do I like? So then I went into English, creative writing.

And I was, I was good at that. I was really good at that. Future books coming. I connection. Well, that was one of the things I said I wasn't going to come on here until I had a book. Clay can write. right very well. Yeah, he's very good. Well, and I'll say this too, I learned how to write really well, too, in college. There was a lot that I wouldn't be as good as I am if I didn't do that.

And so, like, a lot of people will ask each other, well, was college worth it to you, in your opinion? And I look at that time and I think of it as an entrepreneur, I'm like, well, that would have been a lot of time to invest a lot of money I could have made if I just would have gone right into the workforce. Where I think, I think my answer to that question of was college worth it, it's to be determined. Because if I can use that time that I spent there learning to create something meaningful for myself and that gives me a paycheck in the future, then I look back and I'll say, yeah, that was worth it. I think, because I learned something valuable, right? How to write. But if you never do, if I never do it, then what was it for, right?

Well, you're just going to do it then. Yeah, I am. I think you can write a book. It'll be great. I think I will. Well, I think I will. And what's funny is I specialized in fiction writing, but what I've realized as I've gotten older is, I think what I'm probably going to do is more non, it's going to be more memoir type. So anyway, we don't have to get into all that. But as far as business goes, I've thought about at some point writing a business book when I feel like I have enough business acumen to like provide people value. But we'll just see. It's so interesting because I feel like you got, you're exactly the kind of person

that got your money's worth out of college because you learn, I mean, yeah, you change what you were doing all that, but you enjoyed it, you participated, and you got something out of it. And I'm also proud that Sawyer was, self, what do you want to call that? Self-aware enough that he realized that he probably, and the thing is we don't know. We don't know. You know, you, Clay can look back and say,

yeah, it was worth it. Yeah, and I think you're right too. And, you know, we talked about this last week because I didn't really think about it. But so a lot of Sawyers, most of Sawyer's friends, they're all graduating from college this year. So there'll be college graduations. So I said, or I think you actually said it, it's like, yeah, we're going to have a graduation party from Tork U. Because Sawyer went to Tork U. Torque University.

And I don't know if that tuition is high or low. I don't know. The budget's very low, but I hope that you've gotten, I think that you, I think that you're four years that you've spent, I think you've gotten a lot out of it. Yeah, I'd say when I decided that, that was really hard. And I kind of, I would say I put a chip on my shoulder, and I don't know why, but I was like, you know what, I'm going to try to accomplish as much as I can these next four years

so that when people graduate that are my age at 22, I'm going to be light years ahead of where they are. And that, you can take that however you want, but that was kind of the fire I needed a light under myself to get me to go. And it was kind of that chip. Well, and I want to say this to what you've learned over the last four years. Here's the thing. I was not the same. I liken it to this. There's this TV show on Netflix called The Chair. I don't think probably a lot of your audience has seen it, but it's about basically the dysfunction in like the faculty of this department in a university. And so much of what is taught at college is it's a little bit dated in that. It's a It doesn't show you how to use a skill today.

So in my case, what would have been really valuable, would have been a course that told you how to write a manuscript, how to get in touch with a publisher, and where to go, how to do that whole process. There's probably a course on that on the internet now. I don't think there was probably back in 2013. But in your case, like, if you would have gone to, college. I don't, I don't think there probably would have been a class that would have told you

how to create a YouTube, a successful YouTube channel and podcast. Here's all the equipment you're going to need. Here's how to market it. Here's how you use the social media. All that. It would have been just, I don't know, it just would have been a little more cookie cutter than that. I'd agree. One of the things that's so cool about this time that we live in is you can literally teach yourself anything. I learned my whole business. that I'm in now, the photography, I learned that on a course. I'd never had any interest in photography or, you know, videography. Videoography. And I just learned how to do it over COVID. And now it's what pays the bills. And you can, so for a lot of people, I would say, you know,

you're going to get taught stuff that just isn't really valuable, practical for you. Right. In a lot of It's one thing if college wasn't so expensive, but it's just gotten to a ridiculous about a price where you just got to sit down and ask yourself, am I getting the value that I'm paying for? Can I find this information online? Is there a course out there from somebody that's doing the thing that I want to do and is giving that information out? Because, yeah, Clay and I have both benefited from the idea of not knowing how to do a thing, an industry, and learning it all through trial and error and watching YouTube videos and taking courses and reading about it. Social media, I didn't know. Jack shit. Podcasting jack shit. Videotaping myself, jack shit. Didn't know nothing.

Well, everything, everything that you see, I mean, the cameras, the equipment, the editing, how to light it, how to do it, you, I didn't have anything to do with that, other than sitting and watching the videos with you and going, Yeah, what kind of cameras he got there? What are they doing? What's that mic?

Other than that, you figured it all out. And then you had to teach, you had to teach an idiot like me how to do what I do, which is impressive. But for your age, being a, people of your age aren't willing to let, you know, let the younger generation do that kind of thing and then be so involved in it. You've done, you have been so great at you. Yeah, picking it up. Yeah. You got some vitality. Yeah, you know how to, you go with the flow and you learn and you, you know that this, you're bought in and that's great.

Yeah. We make a great team and hope you guys think so too. So I want to go back because I think this is good for context. So when you talked about, you know, when you decided you wanted to go to college, it really was, it really was like that perfect moment in time because mom and I, when you, when you decided you wanted to go to college, we sat down and we talked about it. And if it would have been, if it would have been three years before that, or if it would have been three years later than that, we wouldn't have been able to pay for your college. But it was like that sweet spot where everything in my business and mom's business was clicking. I mean, it was just clicking. And to us, and college at that time was expensive. Now, it's even more expensive now.

But we looked at that as like, when my brother went to college, my older brother, he went to see you. And back then, yes, you know, everything gets more expensive. And it was, for its time, I'm sure it was expensive, but it was manageable. It was not like it is today. and for us we were like if you're going to go the last thing that any kid wants and i feel like a lot of them are sold this bill of goods they don't really put it together when they get out to have

that mountain that you got to climb just to get back to even is it's ridiculous oh it's insane and i think too i mean i've heard it said i watched this uh dave rand Ramsey video. And it's actually, I know you're not a huge Ramsey guy. And that's okay. He's good. But just hear me out on this point. I think that we as a society owe it to our kids, and I'm not a parent, but I feel, I identify with this. We owe it to our kids not to start them at a disadvantage. At a disadvantage in a sea of debt where they're just like you said, going to be climbing out of that. I feel like we owe, we really do owe that to our kids. You know, we, there are people that we talk to and they're like, I'm not paying for my kids to go to college, you know.

And I'm not saying there's anything wrong with it because, yes, if, you know, I don't know if there's a right answer for that because yes, if they're paying for it, you think they're going to be more responsible. But our whole thing, the problem is at that age, you don't understand. It just looks like numbers. It just looks like numbers. It's like, you know, you look at and go, oh, yeah, well, I got that. Well, you put it off.

Yeah, and it's delayed. You're putting this off. But when it's enjoying your time. Right. College is fun. It's hard. It's challenging, and you're just trying to get through it. But we just knew, well, I just knew our mom and I, we were just like, there's, it's

exactly that. We were like, no, we're not going to do it. And we're glad we did it that way because it let you hit the ground running and figure out what you want to do. So you go to college and you change and all that, but you get through. So let's pick up where we left off. So you're, you've made it. Or you go wherever you want to go.

So yeah, you hit the pavement, right, after you graduate. So I moved back here. I applied all sorts of different stuff. I applied in Chicago. What degree did you end up with? English creative writing. There you go. English creative writing.

And I applied to all sorts of like editing positions in Chicago, Minneapolis, just all over, Des Moines. And just nothing. Crickets. Crickets. That's the other thing that we were fed with a spruce. when you were a kid and in school, get the four-year degree and you're guaranteed this salary and you're going to get a job right out the gate.

Yeah. Nope. That is bullshit. So a lot of people when they get to the position I was in would probably just, I mean, literally, my options were do your own thing or like go work at buckle. Yeah. Seriously. Yeah.

Or, you know, X, whatever. Go work in an X place. And so I just did a serious moment of reflection. I said, okay, what else? Because clearly the writing, that's something that's going to come later. Like, I can't write a book right now. I need money now. Like, what else can you do?

And that's where, like I said earlier, you can communicate with people and your professional presence. So when I was in college, I was a campus tour guide, which I really enjoyed doing that. and so I said, well, okay, I can work with a group of people. I can give them a tour of a place. And I'll say this to you about just kind of like my personality. All through college, all my friends were business. I just click with that mentality. And so I had kind of had a group around me too who was like, well, you should go into business.

Well, I was like, okay, why don't I do real estate? It's literally being a tour guide for someone else. It's a little more complicated than that. There's a few more numbers involved and a little more negotiation and just lots of stuff. But it's basically what is real estate? It's solving problems. That is all it is. And so I graduated and decided in July I was going to get my real estate license,

went through that whole process. And that was the hardest test you've ever taken in your life. Actually, yeah. versus four years of college. Yeah, that was the hardest. That was hard. I took, so I took the GRE to go to graduate school because I thought that might be something I was interested and I took the ACT.

And I'll be honest, I didn't do well on either of those. I'm a great student. I graduated with a 3-7, you know, a 3-9 grade point average in my major. But, yeah, I just, I was not good. I didn't really study for the ACT or G-R-E. But anyway, yeah, the real estate test was hard. I failed it by one on the first time, and I wasn't really used to failure. He was not a happy camper.

I was irate. That's one of my most huge tantrums I've ever thrown in my car. It was just freaking out after failing that the first time. So then I took it again, and I got it. Usually the people do fail on the first time. Yeah, a lot of people do. It's pretty tough. And it has, again, like, testing is so weird.

Like, it had no real world application to the actual job I felt, and I feel like a lot of real estate agents would agree with that. So anyway, I was living back where I grew up. First thing I had to do was figure out whether anybody was going to hire me in real estate before I even decided to go and do the whole course. Had to find a brokerage. Yeah. So I kind of had pitched this idea and mom and dad were like, yeah, that's a really good idea.

They're like, you should go talk to Patty Elliott. I said, okay. Patty Elliott owns Elliott Realty Group. and they do a huge volume of transactions. So where we live, real estate isn't as high as like where it would be in Iowa City. But Elliot's do higher volume than a lot of those Iowa City brokerages.

So they do a lot. They do a lot of transactions. I didn't know it at the time. So I just like called her up on the phone and I said, hey, I said, I'm kind of interested in this. I don't know. Can I just shadow you? She said, yep.

so I shouted her for a morning and then like did kind of the whole professional thing that you're taught in college like you followed up with the thank you note and you connected with them on LinkedIn and just very professional about it and she just basically called me and said if you want to just work here you just call me anytime and we'll make it happen which was like when you've just searched for a job for so long and then someone just says yes without a formal interview that first of all makes you you feel really good. And it's also like, yeah, you're going to do it. And I, and it's not that I just looked there. I kind of, I looked at a bigger brokerage in Cedar Rapids and in that area too. And this just felt right for some reason. It felt a little less stuffy. People were pretty real in that office. So, uh, I did it. I started the course work finished, started selling stuff in October. And I'll say this too. The advantage I had was, I had all these people I didn't even know that knew me because of just our family being from here. And dad is just a good dad and mom both are just good people and build positive relationships with people.

So people just wanted to do right by their relationship with mom and dad. And they were like, well, their sons in real estate. God bless them for trying. I had never sold a house before. I didn't know what I was doing. Yeah. But you just fake it until you make it. And I just started selling in October.

And I had a great, I mean, there are a lot of things I liked about real estate. I liked the checks. But I was also at the time when I was really ramping up real estate in a relationship that was not positive for me. And so I talked about how when I was a kid I wanted this life where like it was like the show Glee and everything was just like New York and fabulous and everybody looks great all the time. And Like, it's just a dream world. Well, the person I was with at the time was, we were sort of birds of a feather in that capacity. So anyway, his idea, he was still in college was, well, Washington, Iowa, that's pretty beneath us.

You want bigger things. And it's just going to be easy. We're just going to move to Chicago. Bada bing, bada boom. Easy. It's going to be fun. We're going to have a great life. Okay, well, I've been, this is probably a year in now, and I'm like, oh, you know, like, I don't know.

But anyway, it's like, okay, maybe we'll try Chicago. And this is actually a really pivotal point in my story, too. So I, at the time, there was a company in real estate called Compass that had just sort of come out off the ground. And they were backed by a bunch of Chinese investors. They're still around. They're publicly traded. And there was this kid at you and I that I knew who worked for Compass in Chicago.

And he was very well-to-do. It came from a very well-to-do family. And you knew he was selling million, $2 million properties. just doing great. High ticket. And so I reached out to him because he was a tour guide with me. And I said, hey,

do you think I was like, I just need to be selling higher. You know, I just kind of want to feel this out. I want to see if I want to go to Chicago and this is what I want to do. And he said, yes, absolutely let me set you up.

I know someone who's actually looking for a new agent to come in and work on their team and we'll get you set up. So anyway, I do a couple of Zoom, calls with this brokerage with Compass and they invite me out to Chicago. This is probably 2018. Yeah. So when you got, when you started selling real estate in October, around here, were you doing well? Did you kind of figure out like, did you didn't just go? For my first year, I did really well. And that's partially because I was. So you figured out how to sell. You were like,

okay, I'm good at this. I can probably do this somewhere else if I had, you know, you weren't going to like just move to Chicago without any. No, I had, I knew I had the skill to do it. And I was super into a lot of real estate entrepreneurs. Like Tom Ferry was a big one that I was like would just watch all the time. And what was crazy was like, you know, where we live, not a lot of people are on the cutting edge. And I really feel like I hit the ground running on the cutting edge. I was doing video before.

Anybody else. Anyone was doing video. Like, and I was a very professional presence. I feel like a lot of people can, I'm just going to say this. There's a lot of mediocre out there. There is a lot of mediocre. And I am somebody who is not. I do not want to produce a mediocre single thing in my life.

So I tried to do it with excellence. I think people just picked up on that. So it was partially me and just what I created. It was partially I had help because Patty Elliott did give me some leads. And partially because mom and dad already knew people here. So it was a perfect storm. I did a lot of transactions for my first year. And I was doing well.

You did good. Yep. Yeah. So anyway, I go to Chicago and I sit down with this girl, this woman at this ethnicity of restaurant I literally had never even been to, couldn't even tell you what it was, things I'd never even eaten. So, but, you know, I can, I can play with that. You can bullshit. Oh, yeah. This ain't my first rodee at this type of restaurant.

Yeah. Waiter. Jesus. I can act pretty proper, you know. Oh, yeah. Honestly, so here's the funny, here's the funny, like, secret about being gay. It's that people always just assume you have great taste. They just assume that is true.

Even if you don't feel like you do in a specific area, it's just a total stereotype. And it works to your advantage. People will ask your opinion. And you can just, like, say, yeah, and they'll just trust you, even if you're not sure. So, anyway, we're at this restaurant, and she must think that I'm okay enough because I'm talking to her about like my real estate strategy, my marketing strategy, what can be done better, all this stuff, all these ways to just get people to come work by with you or sell. She likes what I'm telling her. And she basically offers me the job and we get through all the

like brass tacks. And we start just kind of getting to know each other as people. And she tells, going back to the PR that happened, the same thing happened with me and her. She tells me this story. And she's like, well, she's probably late 30s, early 40s. And she's like, my kids are 10 and 11 now. And basically their whole lives, I've been a real estate agent. They were raised by their nanny. I haven't been in their life. And I'm trying to make up for that now.

And I, you know, and I- Is she divorced? No. She's still married. I think I'm not sure if it was her first or second husband, that we didn't get to that. But she, you know, she said, I'm trying to do better now. And I, you know, took that. And then she goes on and tells me the story about in Chicago there was this big parade happening.

I don't know what for and her kids really wanted to go. They were really excited. And she promised them they were going to go to this parade. And it was on a Saturday. And shocker to any real estate agent listening, she got called up to go show by a bunch of prospective clients. they were on their way to the parade and she kind of like got cut off like had to go work so she's taking her kids around with her all day to show and they missed they didn't even take them to the

parade that hit you and i just was i i was like this is the person who's going to be my mentor and this is what i'm trading for this this is what i'm going to trade this is who i'll be and i just got home and it just totally wasn't right totally not and so i said no i'm not doing that And so I stayed with Elliot's for a while longer there. And, yeah, so that's how I got into real estate. And then selling real estate. Selling real estate. And so, like I said, I wanted to do everything with excellence and professionalism

and just really give people a positive experience when they were going through this purchase. And I knew I was really good at reading. I could read anything. I'd read Charles Dickens and Chaucer and all just I could read something from the 18th, 19th century. I can read a, I can read anything. So I was like, okay, best business books, because I wanted to be better at what I did. And so I started looking at the reviews for this book by Robert Kiyosaki. People probably know it. Rich Dad, Poor Dad. If you haven't read this book, highly, highly recommend reading it. Yep. It's, it's, have you read it? Oh, yeah. Okay. You gave me the book. I get it on Amazon. It shows.

was up at my house. And I'll say one nice thing. I was living by myself in Washington at that time. And it was just such a great point in my life to just hunker down on my work and what I was passionate about and what I wanted to learn. Living alone can be just so. Oh, it's nice. It can just thrust you forward. I'm not even kidding. I think everyone needs to live by themselves at least once for a lot, at least a year. Because it is, you find yourself. You do. You figure yourself out and you figure out who you want to be. So I got the book and I very intentionally, the book set up to read a chapter and then ask you all these questions after about implementing and like what you think and all that

stuff. Easy read for you. I mean, it was easy read. Yeah, he does not write too difficult. So I got done with it. And basically the premise of the book is you need to purchase real estate. This is the best thing you can do for your financial future. Make your money work for you.

And you need to not be an employee for someone else. this is the secret. And I mean, we could go, we could do a whole podcast just on the book. Yep. But that's what I, that's when I decided that that's what I needed to do. And so I kind of talk about like a perfect storm.

It was because I kind of finished the book and I just went in and told my broker, I was like, I think I'm going to start buying real estate in town. She's like, oh yeah, yeah, totally agree. That's a great idea. You need to do that. And so she was all about. about it. My parents were all about it because, you know, as land owners, you see the importance

in owning physical property. And so this is where it just kind of gets good. I know sooner say that that this building comes up for sale. It hasn't even really come up for sale. They're just selling it. They let our office know they're going to sell it in Washington. and Tim Elliott takes me over there. He's like, this is for sale. We haven't listed it yet. Here's what we're listing it for. I have a great relationship with the seller.

Look at it. Let me know if you want to buy it. So it's a two-story commercial building. One apartment upstairs in a commercial space. Commercial space. On the main level. Old, early 1900s building. Nice base.

Limestone. Not really nice basement, but big basement. Dry. Oh, God. I have a funny story to tell you about like how much I just didn't know if we even think about it. I'm just going to write this here. But anyway, I knew enough to kind of know.

And I was scared shitless because it needed some stuff. Like, we looked up into the drop ceiling and there was just all this pipe and like water line run up there and electric. And I'm just like, I don't know. I don't know what we're doing here. And but everybody in my tribe that was around me was like, well, it's fine. you should just do it. And so I said, okay. Well, and I'll say this too.

This was a crazy. People would call this a risk, I think. There was no tenant upstairs, and the downstairs had a U.S. cellular in it, or Verizon. U.S. cellular. And they were leaving. They were done.

They would be done by the time whoever purchased it closed. It was going to be vacant. So I knew I was going to have a mortgage payment for a property in a rural area, but I did it. And so here's the other. thing. So I told you I was going to do this and you said, well, what do you think about letting your brother partner with you on this? Sawyer was not even 18 years old. He was in high school.

I think, well, I was, I was, I was, I was 18. You weren't 18 when we went to look at it. Yeah, you hadn't turned yet. I was a, why was my senior year? It was your senior year, but it was before your birthday. Okay, continuing here on, but I got, I got something to say after you're done. Okay, sorry. I feel like I'm doing a good job. Monopold. I like it. Go ahead. I like it. And I think about this for a second and I'm like, you were not you now. No. No. And no one at 18 is who they are when they're 22. But I thought we've just, you know, I didn't even talk about us growing up, but we had a really good relationship. Clay's five years older than me. So pretty much my whole life, what Clay got into,

I like, yeah, that's ironic. Clay started playing video games. I started playing. I started playing video games. Like, I started playing video games before any person my age did because that's what my older brother did. And it was like that with the TV shows. I skipped all the, I don't know, I never watched Barney. I didn't watch that. I watched what Clay watched. I watched Star Wars and Indiana Jones and Lord of the Rings like early. And so I feel like it's a good, it's a well, we have a good age gap where we had a good relationship for the age gap that we had. Yeah, definitely. And it was harder when we were. We had. And it was harder when we were. We have a good age gap that we had. And it was harder when I was in high school when he was at college. You know, we didn't, we weren't probably as

close as we once were when he lived here. But I think that's with every sibling. There was a lot of years between 17 and 22. Yeah. And, um, you learn a lot. And so when you turned 18, it was like, it went from me having a kid brother to more an adult brother. And you just talked about more adult things. It was more fun. Like, and we weren't both teenagers together. We were kids together until I was about 10, 11, 12. And then I was a teenager. And then I was a teenager. And, you just talked about. And, and you thought I was a raging monster. And then you became a teenager and I was in college. You thought probably I was a raging monster.

And then I was just off in college and you were a raging monster. I like, you're both monsters. Yeah. So continue about asking dad and whatever. Yeah. So he's like, well, would you think your brother, you want your brother to be part of this too. And so here was my thought. Sawyer, we didn't know whether you're going to college yet, what you were going to do.

Maybe you knew, but I didn't. I don't think. No, I didn't know. I was on the fence. Here was my honest opinion about it. I was like, I don't want Sawyer to be working one day at that ex-company we were talking about, wherever it is, or just any job, and just be like, I hate my life so much. And I want him to be able to have something that if he wants to fall back on it and leave that world, he can.

So that's why I said, yeah, let's partner. And I will say, Clay letting me in on what he was going to do, that ultimately propelled me to saying, I don't need to go to college. Because I did read, I read Rich Dad, Poor Dad, too. And that was when I was really starting to get into entrepreneurship and business. And I was reading and I was watching people. And Clay sprung this on to me. And I was starting, I started chore in the hog barns.

And I was getting more involved in the farming operation. And so that was really just like the icing on the cake. Like college is not for me. need to go. This is what I wanted. Farming is what I want to do and being in business is what I want to do. And I don't think I need to go to college. And that was like the moment. That was the moment where I was like, okay, I got to, I'm going to stay. I want to say something about this deal because so, so much, and we've talked, we've all talked about this. So much of life is mundane and it's doing, it's doing basically the same stuff. You know, we chore hog billings. You take pictures. You take

pictures of buildings and houses and whatever. And so much of what we do is it's the same every day. But there are moments. There are moments. And man, those moments, they change, they can change the whole trajectory of not only your life, but like, a lot of people's lives around you. I'll give you an example. So for me, I didn't even realize, well, there's a couple.

And we've talked about this before on the podcast. Like the day I went to work for precision structures, that day changed my life. And I didn't even realize it at the time. But because of what came, it made a huge difference. The day that I decided that I was going to build a hog building, when Trish and I decided that we were going to build a hog building after our experience of raising pigs on our own and going through the late night. and all that. Now I look back, I have the luxury of looking back, and that was a pivotal moment

and that changed everything. And that conversation that we had when Clay decided that he wanted, that he would partner with Sawyer, you know, that's a deal that changed both their lives. But I'll never forget, so I don't want to get ahead of the deal, but you guys ended up buying that building. And I remember going to the state bank. when you close that deal. And I think I was just there for moral support is the only reason I went, because, but I remember that,

and I remember sitting in that office, and when we left there that day, I told your mom, I was like, today is one of those days, because I'm getting a little of reclimped about it, but it's like, it's one of those things that,

we i i wrote what i wrote this down i put you know uh we always write down something for the name of the episode and it doesn't always end up being the episode but i put this as proud pop edition and you know it is because there's we talk about legacy you know here i'm i'm going to recover myself but um you know it is and i knew then like I secretly, they didn't even realize it at the time, but putting them in cahoots together, I tell people like, there's nothing better. Like when I'm done, one of the best accomplishments that you can have as a parent is, you know, that you know that your kids are going to be okay.

But when I knew that I had those two in cahoots, that was a great. day. Yeah, it was a great day for us, too. I was, I was ecstatic and I was happy. And it was, we, so we kind of, we appreciate that, dad. Oh, yeah, we love you. We're, we're proud to be your kids. We're proud that you're my, you're our dad. We kind of like skipped over this a little bit. You were selling real estate at the same time that you got into buying and investing in real estate. It wasn't like, Clay was a real estate for a couple years, because it was like, what? I mean, was it your first year or second year selling? Or third.

I was like four or five months into starting selling and I decided to do this. So you were kind of, we were, it's all kind of happened at the same time. Clay was selling it and then he read the book. Vassad got me involved and it all kind of was happening at the same time. So I just wanted to clear that up because it wasn't like, oh, I was selling for three years and then I decided. It was like, it was pretty early. Well, and that's the whole point of the book is you got to start early as soon as you can because time just compounds everything. And so I was 23 and you were 18 and you literally were in high school

and you were telling your friends like, yeah. Oh, we bought this building downtown. I mean, oh God, you badass. And to be fair, I mean, you know, you did not know what the hell you were doing. Oh, no. You knew more than me because you were selling it, but I was going back to when we talked about earlier when we were talking about, you know, you started your business and we started this whole thing. We didn't know anything about what we're doing now as like career paths, right? And we learned it all. That is one of those things that we didn't know shit. You didn't know. I mean, you knew more than me, right, but we, we didn't know shit about how to invest in real estate, how it all worked, best ways to do it, what to look out for, what to, you know, we didn't know all the answers. This story will tell you.

But we jumped in. And yeah, if this. doesn't scare you for me as a landlord. I don't know what will. But or if this doesn't convince you that you can do it too, like, okay, so I started in real estate and this is how much I did not know. I went to this real estate inspection. So that's where the inspector comes and looks at a house for a buyer and they try to find defects. And it gives the buyer kind of like an out if in case they don't want it and something's really structurally wrong with the house. And he's coming to look at the furnace to give the furnace an inspection. Oh, God. And he, we're down there and I'm down there with the buyers and I'm just in my like dress clothes and, you know.

And this, uh, it's a winner and this HVAC guy opens up the furnace. And I look in there and there was a fire in there. And I literally like had to contain my surprise because I didn't know that furnaces had fire in them. Like I didn't know. That's how that worked. So, yeah, that person decided to become a real estate investor. So you were like, oh shit, you're thinking was going to burn down? I was like, oh, my God.

It's like, that's like kind of dangerous, but like they must have perfected it pretty well. Like, I don't know. And I just remember like really trying to keep my hat on because like I couldn't obviously. You were freaking out on the inside. There's fire in a furnace? Because my buyer's been like, what the hell did we do going with you as a real estate agent? But yeah. So, um, so we started this.

we started investing. And I've said this before on the podcast. I don't know if you've listened to them all. Clay is the forefront man, front man of this business. Clay is the real estate guy. I've said this many times. I do the farm and he does a lot of the real estate. We help each other out when we need each other.

And I've said this many times. Clay is going to get involved in the farm because I know what he's doing on that end, he gave me the opportunity to be involved. I'm going to give him the same opportunity to get involved on the farm too, because I think equally, they're both important. Pillars, as you say. Yes, pillars of wealth. And you cannot be successful just doing it all, you're doing it all alone. You can, but it's hard. It is very hard. And if you really want to be truly successful, really successful, wealthy, you can't do it alone. You can't build a great company alone. You can't build a great anything.

Well, I think what's really special about, you know, and I'm biased, but what's special about what you two have is you both have different strengths. And that makes it, that makes it so good because, and you're different, you're both very different, but your, your focus is similar. Like, the end goal is the same. What I mean is like, when you do get together, an decision has to be made, you guys are good at having each other's back and you respect each other's opinion. And, you know, I'll just say that as I look back on it and with all the stuff that we've looked at since, because they drag me along just to make me feel. Visit BetMGM Casino and check out the newest exclusive, the Price is Right Fortune Pick.

BetMGM and Game Sense remind you to play responsibly, 19 plus to wager. Ontario only. Please play responsibly. If you have questions or concerns about your gambling or someone close to you, please contact connects Ontario at 1-866-531-2,600 to speak to an advisor. Free of charge. BetMGM operates pursuant to an operating agreement with Eye Gaming, Ontario. Like, I'm important, even though they don't need me.

But we've looked at some real junk. We have looked at some real junk. Yeah, I'm trying to think now. And it's like they just lucked out on that first building they bought because it was old, but it was in good shape structurally, wasn't a lot that had to be done. And you found a renter for the commercial space. And then Sawyer decided, you can go ahead. So when I made the decision I wasn't going to go to college, I had to figure out, well,

I had to figure out where I was going to live. and we bought this property. We didn't want him here. There was no tenant upstairs, so I think you pitched the idea to me. I don't know. Everyone kind of pitched the idea to me that, well, Sawyer, just, why don't you live upstairs

in the building that you owned? Probably your friends because they wanted someplace to party. No, it wasn't. It was a smart move because we had to pay that mortgage. We had to pay the mortgage. So, Sawyer, live upstairs, be the tenant. For however long you're going to be there. Let's just get the commercial space.

rented and you don't have to worry about the upstairs tenant and i was like shit okay i'll go live up there and we did we did a little work in there i don't know we paid in the walls expose the brick wall stuff like that cosmetic stuff but yeah i lived there for a year but yeah worked out yeah worked out and to piggyback off of how it worked out like this is one of my favorite stories to tell too so like you said we didn't have any idea i mean i don't i didn't know if someone was going to come in there and like rent the commercial side of it or not. And so just the advantage of being in a real estate office was just I can't even, I don't know, emphasize it enough for me at that time because we had done the purchase agreement and we were

going to close on it. And one day into the office walks this guy. And he wants to open a nail salon in town and he's like, are there any places to do this? So Tim Elliott walks them back. He's like, you need to take him to your building and show to him right now. I was like, okay. So we walked down. He's there with his family. They're like walking through.

They're looking at it. It's a Vietnamese family. Vietnamese nail salon is what they want to do. And I was so nervous. I didn't know. I wasn't confident in what I was going to charge him for rent. I wasn't confident in like how to negotiate terms. I was still a very new real estate agent, and I'd never done a lease.

Still very new real estate investor. Yeah, first ever. I was so nervous. And this is the nicest guy ever. I don't know why I was scared. But, and they're just looking around and he's like, and I told him, which is so stupid now looking back, I'm like, I'm not wavering on a one year lease. They need a sign one year.

And he's like, so one year? And I'm like, yep, one year. And then they start talking amongst themselves in Vietnamese. and I have no idea what they're saying. I'm like, oh, my God, they're going to try and do month. Hangle me. They're going to haggle me and they want to do month to month and I just can't do it. And I'm terrible telling people no.

So this is why I'm so nervous. And he comes back and he's like, would you do five years? And I'm like, damn right, I'll do five years. Yeah, let's sign a five-year lease today. So that's just such a great story of just like, I love that story because it's such an example of, like you said, yeah. It just things just work out. some time. Whoa, wait, what happened? Oh, it's the end of the, it's the end of the podcast. Well, no, not really. The podcast was so good and we were all trying to get a word in edgewise that

we ended up running like two and a half hours. And when I got it edited down, I was like, wow, that's just too much to put you through. So we're splitting in half and lots of good stuff ahead, a lot of really good real estate talk. And stay tuned. Come back next week and we'll give you the second half. Thanks for watching. I'm